Page 41 of The Guilty Girl

‘Not cool?’

He squinted out from under his ginger lashes. ‘They were screaming at each other. The DJ guy … he helped me separate them.’

‘What happened after that?’

‘Lucy ran upstairs. She must have been fixing her make-up, because a few minutes later she waltzed down the stairs like nothing had happened. Not a mark on her. All fake smiles.’

‘And Hannah?’

‘She was so upset. Frantic. But then she started to chill.’

‘In what way was she chilled?’

‘Kind of … out of it. Dancing around all floppy. I don’t know how to describe it.’

‘Was it because of what you gave her?’

‘I took one exactly the same and I wasn’t acting like that. Maybe she’d taken something else before she attacked Lucy. She said she was drinking Coke. There could’ve been something mixed in it.’

Lottie wondered about that. ‘Could Jake or someone else have slipped something into her drink?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe. I wasn’t with her all the time.’

‘Tell me more about the row.’

‘When she attacked Lucy, I tried to restrain her, before the DJ got involved, and she scratched my stomach with those long nails of hers. So if you find blood on her, some of it could be mine from when I separated them.’

The young man was talking nineteen to the dozen. Lottie was finding it hard to keep up. He twisted around in the chair and lifted his shirt, and she visually examined the raw scrapes criss-crossing his torso. ‘What were you wearing?’

‘A belly top?’ Kirby snorted.

‘It’s not funny.’ Cormac leaned over the table.

‘Murder is definitely not funny.’ Lottie glared at Kirby.

‘My T-shirt was loose and I’d my hands up trying to stop her when she scraped me.’

Lottie wondered if this was the reason why Hannah had blood under her fingernails. She needed that DNA analysis fast-tracked.

‘Cormac, we have to take samples from your injuries, and photograph them. Okay?’

‘They’re just a few scrapes, but yeah, it’s cool. It might prove how unhinged Hannah was.’

Unhinged?

‘After Lucy escaped upstairs to fix her make-up, what did Hannah do?’

‘The DJ calmed her down, got her a drink. Like I said, she was spaced out. It was as if she didn’t know what was going on around her. She probably doesn’t even know what she did.’

‘You’re remembering an awful lot all of a sudden. What’s changed?’

He shifted on the chair and picked at his thumb. ‘I didn’t want to snitch on Hannah, but with Lucy dead, it changes everything. Sorry I lied earlier. I still want a solicitor.’

‘Right.’ Lottie stifled a groan. ‘I’ll try to arrange it. The guy on the door, Noel Glennon, the athletics coach, PE teacher, whatever he is, have you managed to remember anything about him?’ She failed to hide her cynicism.

‘I’d never seen him before last night.’

‘Really? He taught at Hannah and Lucy’s school. You’re a gardener there, aren’t you?’